I spent days thinking what I was going to write in the article that coincided with the Bolivia Bicentennial, but, after what I saw in Sucre, my entire forecast went through the sewer.
As I said in this column, the most transcendental works of this bicentennial will be the books that have been presented, three of them with the support of the Bank of Credit, and the statue of Juana Asurdui de Padilla that was located in the Plaza 25 de Mayo, with costs covered by Banco Unión.
Beyond aesthetics issues, which were also a reason for debate, the monument is a work that I would already like to have in the main square of my city. Its delivery was a reason for celebration until it was discovered, and the name that is on the pedestal. The Unión Bank had the good criteria of putting the name with the original spelling; That is, Asurdui with “s” and “i”, as written in Basque, since this last name is of Basque origin.
The name paralyzed the joy and, bullshit by a journalist who owns a radio with high audience rates, many Sucrenses criticized that way of writing the name. First they said it was a mistake, but, when they were explained that this is how the last name in the baptismal game of the true Juana, the heroin, then proceeded to attack the historical clarification.
I will try to explain this menjunje: back in the ’40s a baptismal game of a woman named Juana Asurduy Bermúdez was found, born on July 12, 1780, and those who found the document believed that it was the heroine and so proclaimed it. Then there were observations, when his marriage departure was found with Ascencio Padilla, because the names of the parents did not coincide, but few gave importance to the matter. Things changed when another baptismal departure was found, from a woman whose parents are the same as the remaining documents, so it was clear that this was the true guerrilla and the other a homonym. But the Sucrenses ignored the finding and continued celebrating on July 12 as a date of birth, but by Juana Asurduy Bermúdez who, in addition, changed the last name to Azurduy, with “Z”.
In Sucre they have been told in a thousand ways that there was an error and must be rectified, that the true heroine is the one that appears in the baptismal departure of March 1780 with the name of Juana Asurdui Llanos, but there are people who do not want. Asked by the journalist of Marras, to the rector of the San Francisco Xavier University, he declared that this house of higher studies “recognizes” the Juana of July 12, the Azurduy to which “Z” was put, and will continue to celebrate that date.
And the cherry in the cake was the statement of a councilor who proposed to approve a rule that declares that heroin is that of July 12 and leaves the last name as it was.
Let’s see …
It is the Bicentennial and we should be talking about background issues, such as the economic and future crisis of the country, but in Sucre, the center of the celebration, there are people who have said that they will not change anything because they consider that, with error and everything, the version of the wrong Juana should not be touched. We are talking about the most retrograde and recalcitrant conservatism, one of the explanations of why this country is as it is.
There are people who do not want to change, even if they are explained with “chuis” that there are wrong versions that, therefore, should be amended, but prefer to live in error, instead of correcting it. The question that I ask myself, consequently, is how many things will prevent it from changing. Hopefully poverty is not one of them.
